The best external source is reality, if you can corner it with a well designed experiment; this is, unfortunately, really, really hard.
Established theories are also good (but, as history has shown, can be wrong). The biggest problem with theory-based fact checking is that our best theories generally come in pairs that make conflicting claims or are otherwise inconsistent. Plus, the proper application of theories can often be a minefield of subtlety. So this comes down to a choice of "pick the theory that gives the answer you like" or "trust the experts" (e.g. argument by authority).
That leaves us with the most popular option: compare the claim against some consensus (and it happens to be correct). This is generally easy, and works great when there _is_ a consensus, which leads us to overestimate its reliability. And thus we waste years exploring amyloid beta plaques, looking for dark matter, teaching whole-word reading, and so on.
It would be great if we had an easy way to tell who's lying, but in fact what we've got is a lot of ways to tell who we agree with and who we don't, and we don't always agree with each other on that.
But then you have cases where someone correctly cites a source that they know to be incorrect (or at least plausibly should know). This is commonly done when flawed studies are funded specifically so they can be cited. This is arguably even more egregious lying, yet would pass a consistency based "fact check".
Likewise, the factual claim ("eight out of ten doctors surveyed recommend smoking brand-x") can be true while the implication is false.
In short, I'm not claiming such checks can't catch liars (they can), just that passing such checks doesn't mean they were telling the truth or what they said or implied was correct.
ygritte•6mo ago
prasadjoglekar•6mo ago
https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/items/8f9a6f3b-efd7-46f3-b4be...
You may be aligned with the alleged or real partisanship of Politifact, so to you there's no problem here. But team Harris and Buttigieg lost the election.
Hence these consequences (from Wikipedia):
In January 2025, Mark Zuckerberg announced an end to Meta's eight-year partnership with PolitiFact, claiming that "fact checkers have just been too politically biased."[62][63
noelwelsh•6mo ago
> The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.
The play book is:
1. Set an impossible standard (an undefined "unbiased" fact checker)
2. When impossible standard cannot be reached, throw toys out of the pram
Meanwhile, egregious levels of bullshit now go unchallenged.
brookst•6mo ago
Somehow our whole society has fallen for the “unless you can point to a perfect saint who has never done any wrong, we might as well be led by active criminals” pitch. It’s so nihilistic.
littlestymaar•6mo ago
No relationship with the fact that Trump became president again in Jan 2025 with Zuckerberg giving money to his inauguration, obviously.
ImPostingOnHN•6mo ago
Consider an alternative framing, "fact checkers like Politifact are precisely what are considered UNbiased". It is at least as true (because at least 2 people consider it to be so).
Given that framing alternative to yours: what, if anything, should we do anything about the situation?
How do you think framing, rather than substance, affects that discussion?
alanbernstein•6mo ago
The distribution also leaves out the significance and the reach of the statements.
Your statement is about as meaningful as the "fastest growing <whatever>" trick. E.g. growing from 0->1 user is infinite growth, so wins fastest growing immediately.
superxpro12•6mo ago
h-bradio•6mo ago